


On the Origins of Mice

by Yarrun



Category: Disney Cartoons (Classic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 09:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13479024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yarrun/pseuds/Yarrun
Summary: A one-shot based on the time someone dared me to explain how Minnie and Mickey had the same last names despite not being married.





	On the Origins of Mice

She was born to the East Coast Mouses, who traced their lineage back to the noble German Maus family. There was a castle somewhere in their history, and some number of counts, but what Minnie remembered the most was her mother's tales of great-uncle Heinz Maus, the one with the limp and the Mensur scar. He had spent most of his life traipsing around Europe, attending salons, getting into fights and outrunning debtors. A true adventurer at heart who, to the dismay of all those around him, died in bed, shriveled and pale. So as a young girl, she dreamed of classic fantasies, of brave heroes with poor impulse control. She outgrew most of that in time, but not all of it.

  
When she had finished enough schooling to worry her parents, she set out from the familial home in Pennsylvania to New York, seeking education outside the usual finishing schools. She made decent money for a single woman in the Twenties, balancing books for a night club in the day and dancing on tables on the weekends. She spent it on speakeasy drinks, suffragist tchotchkes, and a cheap pair of pumps that were a bit too large for her. It was rarely easy, but it was always exciting, and there was always something to see on her days off. Of course, since she was old money and unmarried, her parents soon grew wary of giving her a long leash, and wanted her to return home. But then, a stroke of fate occurred, and she ran into the man who would become a legend.

  
Mickey got a job polishing glasses for the club at the time, paying the bills until things picked up in the shipping business again. Like most of the unskilled labor at the club, he was often a brash lout of a roustabout, and Minnie saw nothing of interest in him besides his last name. Even that became uninteresting once she asked him a few questions and established that he wasn't some secret relative (he was of the English Mus family, and his grandfather crossed the pond less than a century prior, but there's no need to go into elaborate detail here). However, he was sharper than he looked, and sparks of reasoning occasionally shone through his thick head. Indeed, the first time they truly talked was over the books Minnie would read on break, the only books that found their way into the club besides the ledgers and dime novels, and Mickey distinguished himself by borrowing one of them, gradually reading through it, and getting into an extended argument with her over the ending. This set the tone for their friendship. They argued about books. They argued about work, and New York, and the world at large. When Minnie decided that it would be worth making _absolutely_ sure they weren't related, they argued about that. But these were increasingly civil arguments, where there was more satisfaction in going the distance than actually winning. Each argument garnered understanding, and from understanding came respect, and from respect came something more tender. And when her parents came to the city to urge her to come home, she was able to present a young man who, through extended contact with her, had become something resembling respectable, someone whom they could trust their daughter with. So, they relented and let her continue her life as a free woman.

  
Their relationship took a lot longer to get from tenderness to true romance. Mickey was less of a lout than most roustabouts, but he was a lout, and he took some time to properly grow up. But they learned together, and by the time they followed the siren call of show business, Minnie had her daring, brash hero at long last.


End file.
